About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which owns around 80K domain names and whose retail site is at MostWantedDomains.com. Michael is also a Director of RightoftheDot.com which is a consultant in the new gTLD space and a broker of super premium domains. Michael Is also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest at #Internetofficial

We’re off to see the Wizard, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
You’ll find he is a whiz of a Wiz! If ever a Wiz! there was.
If ever oh ever a Wiz! there was The Wizard of Oz is one because,
Because, because, because, because, because.
Because of the wonderful things he does.
We’re off to see the Wizard. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

There won’t be any confusion. Things will continue on as they always have. Because all of the big, long-established websites that really matter on the Internet, already own .COM.

A few years from now, it will be interesting to see what a huge failure the new gTLDs turned out to be… except for the registrars of course, who will be the only real (short-term) winners in this chapter of the Internet’s history.

RE: “I’d be amiss to not add that some of the gTLDs may find a certain measure of success… but they’ll definitely be in the minority.”

this doesnt really go along with your previous predication…. so lemme get this straight: there wont be any confusion and things will continue on as they always have – yet at the same time some will find a certain amount of success. whaaaat?

it sounds like you’re wording it so either way you can point back and say “see i was right.”

tell me then, what is the flip side of that predication then… that “all new gTLD’s will find success”

I think certain specialized extensions, like .NBA for example, may be successful. It makes sense that sports teams may gravitate towards obvious extensions like that, much like most charities or non-profits prefer to use .ORG, rather than .COM.

I stand by my original statement though, that there won’t be any confusion. After all the ‘excitement’ (from certain groups) about the new gTLDs dies down, we’ll pretty much have the Internet as it always has been.

There’s no need for these gTLDs. People only have so many hours in the day to visit the sites they’re already visiting on a regular basis. Do we really need thousands upon thousands more? And even if we did, how well will the vast majority of those sites compete against the long-established sites (.COM or otherwise) that are already out there? For example, try to start a video game review site and see how well you fare against the likes of GameSpot.com, or any number of other popular gaming sites.

I created my first .COM website in 1996. I wasn’t overly savvy in thinking that domain names would become a good investment. I just registered names that I wanted to use for websites. Would I want to start over today with a gTLD? No way. Even starting a site from scratch with a .COM today would be hard enough.

Scratch what I wrote above about .NBA. Even if NBA teams use the extension, just how many NBA teams are out there? Maybe .SHOP will be successful. Simply because there will likely be a lot of people out there who will think they can make some sort of a living going up against the likes of Amazon, or whatever. Or selling their home-made crafts… when they should just be on ETSY, instead. There’s already a solution out there that these gTLDs don’t need to fill.

In other words, after giving this some more thought, I have even less hope for the long-term success of gTLDs.

well, using the .NBA example anyway – something like that *could* be what it takes to popularize the *idea* that any TLD is cool to use. so its possible some of the .BRANDS will lead the way and make it OK, even trustworthy to use these weird other TLD’s.

i dont know though, i still think trustworthy is the wrong word. familiarity is probably more accurate.. but i guess there is some overlap in these definitions in this context.

you are right about starting your own website though – unless you have a solid customer base places like eBay/Amazon have the majority of that market locked down – when you think of buying cheap priced stuff online lots of people skip google and go straight to ebay/amazon.

Yes, but we already have extensions like .TV and .ME, and while some of those sites (and hacked names/alternate extensions) can be cool, it hasn’t caused a mad rush for everyone to go out and follow suit. What discourages this mass exodus away from .COM is the fact that over 99% of large companies and sites out there use .COM. So naturally, nearly everyone would prefer to have a .COM, if they were able to get one, anyway.

Familiarity and trustworthiness go hand in hand. Just having a .COM (over having a .SHOP, for example) puts you in ‘the lead’, in this regard.